


Visiting Hours

by pied_pollo



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: (john mulaney voice) nOOO! in fact we'll frame you for mURDER!, Angst, Chess, Dissociation, Drugs, Gen, Hallucinations, Homicidal Thoughts, Hurt No Comfort, Intrusive Thoughts, P a r e n t h e s i s, Poisoning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Season/Series 12, Sleep Deprivation, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Stabby Toothbrushes, Suicidal Thoughts, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, as i have never been in a prison, general Bad Things (TM), not depicted or described just mentioned but just to be safe, oh my god so many parenthesis, prison inaccuracies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25994467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pied_pollo/pseuds/pied_pollo
Summary: Getting more and more intense. Got to fall deeper in to beat them. I’ve lost friends before, but not like this—not in a box where I have no control—or do I? Starting to think like them; starting to survive like them. I’m here because I made a choice. What if that means I don’t get out alive?
Comments: 30
Kudos: 131





	Visiting Hours

He waits until a commanding voice bellows to _OPEN GATE_ (a monotone voice, he notices. Strange how some people could be so detached in a place like this) and the door Spencer can’t touch slides open with a metallic clang.

It’s _INMATES PROCEED_ and Spencer finds himself sitting across from Garcia (who looks so out of place in this neutral-toned facility; pink and green and dry against the damp stone walls), and she looks more terrified than he does, but both are more-or-less maintaining their composure (for now).

Silence, save for the steady murmur of people and the click of fingers that rap against counter tops, itching to touch. Spencer finds himself reaching forward for the floppy bow on Garcia’s head, even though the glitter will get on his fingers, but he doesn’t even have to worry about that because it’s _NO TOUCHING ALLOWED_.

He pulls back and Garcia’s eyes are welling up with tears, but she’s able to keep her voice light when she says, “It’s so good to see you.”

“You, too,” Spencer replies (though he wishes Garcia didn’t come because she doesn’t deserve this.)

“Your hair looks good,” Garcia offers awkwardly, and it’s so ridiculous that Spencer chuckles.

“Yeah?”

It does the trick; a soft smile lights up Garcia’s features. “Totally,” she insists, “super suave. A little dry shampoo goes a long way for turning grease into texture, I might add. You should keep it like this, after you get out,” (--and he can see how much she regrets it as soon as she says it, but despite that Garcia continues the sentence with that ever-determined optimism--) “because we’re _going_ to get you out of here.”

“I know you will,” Spencer replies quietly (even though he doesn’t know, but he keeps himself hopeful for Garcia’s sake), then adds: “The letters are helping.”

She brightens at that. “Yeah? Did you get our puzzles, too?”

“I did. Thank you.” (Four days in and he’s already lying to her, because he got the letters but not the puzzles, nor the sudoku, nor the stickers Garcia says they all sent, because pens and paper and cardboard and so many things are hazardous here, _too_ hazardous, apparently, because these objects seem to have more regulations against _them_ than the prisoners.)

Before Garcia says more, a bell rings, there’s the _VISITING HOURS ARE OVER INMATES PROCEED TO REAR GATE_ , and Spencer doesn’t hear what Garcia shouts as he’s ushered out of the room, but whatever it is, it breaks his heart.

* * *

After Garcia leaves, a guard sits Spencer down and slides a piece of paper across the table. On it: **_INMATE 037265-1452-FQ (REID, SPENCER) VISITOR CONSENT_** _._ Spencer twirls the pen (attached to the table by a thin cord, because it’s a hazard) once, twice, before scribbling down names that start to blur together (and he almost smiles at the number of friends on the sheet, a number he can count on two hands, which is more than his younger self was able to say.)

_PENELOPE GARCIA TARA LEWIS LUKE ALVEZ EMILY PRENTISS JENNIFER JAREAU DAVID ROSSI FIONA DUNCAN ALEXANDRA BLAKE_ (he doesn’t know why he puts that name down, but it would be nice if Blake did come, despite Spencer not having contacted her in two months) _STEPHEN WALKER_ _DEREK MORGAN._

“Last names first,” the guard instructs, a little too late.

“Could I have a new sheet?” Spencer requests hopefully.

“Cross out and rewrite, inmate.”

( _Inmate_ . He’s not used to being called an _inmate_ and hopes he can get out of here before he has to.)

Now’s not the time to be frustrated and perfectionistic (not to mention germaphobic; how many people have touched this pen, this paper?) so Spencer _zip, zip, zip_ s his pen in crooked lines across the names and prints them neatly, in separate rows:

_GARCIA, PENELOPE_ ** _FEDERAL SPECIAL AGENT, B.A.U., F.B.I (VA) - INMATE COLLEAGUE_** ** _  
_**_LEWIS, TARA (DR.)_ **_S.S.A., B.A.U., F.B.I (VA) - INMATE COLLEAGUE_** _  
__ALVEZ, LUKE_ ** _FEDERAL SPECIAL AGENT, B.A.U., F.B.I (VA) - INMATE COLLEAGUE_** _  
__PRENTISS, EMILY_ ** _S.S.A., B.A.U., F.B.I (VA) - INMATE COLLEAGUE_** _  
__JAREAU, JENNIFER_ ** _S.S.A., B.A.U., F.B.I (VA) - INMATE COLLEAGUE_** _  
__ROSSI, DAVID_ ** _S.S.A., B.A.U., F.B.I (VA) - INMATE COLLEAGUE_** _  
__DUNCAN, FIONA_ ** _BJORK-DUNCAN-SANDERS LAW (DC) - INMATE LAWYER  
_**_BLAKE, ALEXANDRA (DR.)_ ** _PROF., HARVARD UNIVERSITY (MA) - INMATE CLEARED ACQUAINTANCE  
_**_WALKER, STEVEN_ ** _S.S.A., B.A.U., F.B.I (VA) - INMATE COLLEAGUE_** _  
__~~MORGAN, DEREK~~_ (he doesn’t deserve this, but maybe it’s a good idea--) _  
__~~MORGAN, DEREK~~ _(--he doesn’t deserve this, but maybe it’s a good idea--) _  
__~~MORGAN, DEREK~~ _(--he doesn’t deserve this, but maybe it’s a good idea--) _  
__~~MORGAN, DEREK~~ _(--he doesn’t deserve this, but maybe it’s a good idea--)  
_~~MORGAN, DEREK~~_ (--he doesn’t deserve this and it’s not a good idea, because Morgan is an action man that can’t sit around, helpless, and why would Spencer do that to him?)

He hopes that Morgan will understand (but maybe he won’t, and maybe he’ll regret naming his baby after Spencer, but maybe he just doesn’t need to know about this situation yet.)

* * *

Spencer doesn’t know whether or not he likes being bored here, because the boredom is better than the fear, but he needs something to think about, something to _do_ , rather than sit around watching water drip down the walls. 

Sometimes he makes (and remakes and remakes and remakes and remakes) his bed, and sometimes he reads (and rereads and rereads and rereads and rereads) the books Shaw gave him, but it’s not enough (because one can only flip through flip through flip through flip through flip through _Fahrenheit 451_ and _Bleak House_ and other classics that aren’t long enough so many times.)

All that’s really left of his old life, Spencer realizes, is chess. He plays the other inmates in the courtyard, plays Shaw in their side-by-side cells, then plays himself when everyone gets sick of losing.

One day, Tara asks if they can play by imagining the chess board themselves. Spencer’s grateful for that.

“Knight to F3,” she says. They’re playing an 8-by-8 board, because Tara insisted she couldn’t keep track of anything bigger in her mind, but Spencer gets the feeling she’s using chess as a smokescreen in order to gauge some sort of intellectual understanding of his mental state.

“Pawn to B4,” he replies, deciding that he doesn’t blame Tara for her curiosity, as it doesn’t even matter. It’s nice just to sit here, in front of a person as opposed to a stone wall.

“Knight to F6. You got a job in laundry? Is there anything else you could do?”

“Bishop to B2. Not a lot, really. I read; there’s an inmate who lends me books.”

“Pawn to D4. That’s kind of him. What are you reading now?”

“Bishop to B7. _The Count of Monte Cristo_.”

“Knight to G5. Ah, that’s one of my favorites from college. _‘Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words--‘wait and hope’.’”_

They go back and forth like this until Spencer wins (but unlike the others, Tara doesn’t whine or threaten to slit his throat.) It feels normal, quiet, good. There are no tears when _VISITING HOURS ARE OVER INMATES PROCEED TO REAR GATE_ ; rather, Tara gives him a small nod, a small smile, and it lights a spark in Spencer’s chest--optimistic anticipation.

_Wait and hope._

Chess, Spencer realizes, is not all he has left.

(But then the cell door slams shut and he tries so hard not to feel bored and alone, tries so hard to seal these conversations into memory, tries so hard to follow Alexandre Dumas’s advice, but the ground is still hard and his hair is still damp and his mind is still empty, empty, empty, no matter how many good things there are to hold onto.)

* * *

Mexico takes up a lot of his thoughts.

_Someone was there._

The memories are slurred and slow, like sludge in his brain.

_Rosa’s on the ground. You are, too._

Spencer hopes desperately that there’s something-- _anything_ \--in the back of his mind that could possibly help his case, but it keeps getting worse.

_The blade of the knife is in your hand, and you cut yourself._

And worse.

_Someone’s behind you, watching you, proud of you, proud of themselves?_

And worse.

_The knife goes into someone, who is it? Who’s holding the knife?_

And worse.

_CPR is ineffective when you’re high, and there are too many wounds to staunch for it to be successful._

And worse.

_But there’s a good chance that the seemingly copious amounts of blood could be a drug-induced hallucination._

And worse.

_If that’s so, that means Rosa could have still been alive after you gave up compressions._

And worse.

_Maybe you let her die._

And worse.

_Or maybe you just killed her._

* * *

“Oh, hell,” is all Rossi says when he gets a look at the bruises coloring Spencer’s face.

Spencer just nods in reply.

“Is there anything…” Rossi starts, but his voice trails off (because they’ve been in enough prisons to know that there’s nothing to be done about these sorts of things, and it’s not like anyone would care, anyway.)

“It’s okay,” Spencer assures him quietly (and it’s not okay, but at least he’s still well enough to feel the pain from these punches.)

Rossi sits back in his chair. “How many days have you slept since...?”

Spencer shakes his head.

“You need sleep, kid. You can’t function without it, you know that.”

Spencer shakes his head again. “I can’t,” he whispers (and it’s familiar, this conversation-- _don’t be like Uncle Sal--_ except it’s not even dreams that keep Spencer awake at night now. He is simply unable to close his eyes and rest.)

Painstaking silence. Spencer lets his eyes slide shut for a moment, lets his head drop to his chest, before someone shouts _NO TOUCHING ALLOWED_ and he jumps out of his chair. He can feel his heart hammering in his chest, but it’s slow and harsh, like a steady drumbeat. 

_...Ba-DUM…ba-DUM...ba-DUM..._

_SIT DOWN, INMATE._

Spencer takes a seat as his heart quickens, trying to desperately keep up with the rest of his body, before it gets confused, skipping and fluctuating with the sudden changes in posture. When did a pulse make someone so fatigued?

(The list of symptoms and diagnoses start to pile up in his mind, but quickly drop and dissolve in tandem with his loud and ragged breathing.)

Rossi looks expectantly at him, like he’s waiting for something, and it’s enough for Spencer to finally splutter out: “I’m just...so _tired_ , Rossi.”

“I know.” It’s like Rossi’s talking to a small child (and Spencer so desperately wants just that, to be young and more-or-less oblivious, to take life slowly and do the things he missed out on.) “You just gotta keep going, kid. Keep trying. It might seem like you’re alone in here, but you’re _not_. You hear me?”

Spencer nods.

“You’re _not_ ,” Rossi repeats firmly, “because we’re right here with you, Spencer. Every step of the way, we’re gonna fight for you. So just fight with us, okay?”

Spencer stands up, and starts to promise--

_VISITING HOURS ARE OVER INMATES PROCEED TO REAR GATE._

\--but Rossi holds up a hand to silence him.

“Don’t promise me,” he says. “Just _do_ it for me, Spencer.”

Spencer nods (and in his head he still promises to stay alive for them, promises with every last painful pump of blood to his exhausted heart.)

* * *

One month down. Spencer scratches another tick into the side of the wall (avoiding the word-down marks from the cell’s previous inhabitants. How many have there been, and what did they all do? What did _he_ do, to get put in this same place?)

His hands are sticky. His clothes are dusty. But it doesn't bug him as much as it should.

(That is, until it’s _INMATES PROCEED TO SHOWER ROOMS_ and Spencer scrubs his hands raw underneath the steamy spray, even though he knows the feeling of grime and blood and stale detergent will never quite leave him.)

The laundry room was the wrong place to work.

The other inmates, the ones in charge, ask Luis to move their drugs, and he does, but they kill him.

They ask Malcolm to move their drugs, and he does, but they give him more to do.

They ask Spencer to move their drugs, and he hesitates.

Move the drugs, get praised, get punished anyway, by a guard or by the prisoners. Then the cycle repeats, again and again and again. A definition of insanity is doing something repeatedly and expecting a different outcome. Who’s to say Spencer won’t end up with his throat slit, too?

Then again, there are worse ways to die in here.

Spencer starts to think of all the ways he could be killed in his routine, slowly, steadily, like clockwork:

0700: Wake Up / Roll Call (beaten by prisoners; beaten by a guard)

0730: Breakfast (poisoned; stabbed in the neck with a fork, either by his hand or someone else’s)

0830: Courtyard (too many possibilities)

0900: Laundry room (drink the detergent; beaten by prisoners; lose the drugs they ask him to move; move the drugs they ask him to move and get beaten by a guard)

1100: Reflection / chapel (Taken hostage by a desperate prisoner; raped by another prisoner; skull fracture on the altar or the small pew; bleed out before an unforgiving God)

1200: Recreation (too many possibilities)

1230: Lunch (if they find out he's a fed the prisoners who work in the kitchen will surely turn their utensils and fists on him)

1330: Visiting Hours (and he feels safe here, feels safe here, feels safe here, feels safe here, feels safe here and the rest of the schedule doesn’t matter, because his friends are enough to take him through the day.)

1530: Laundry Room

1630: Group Therapy

1730: Shower Room (except for here, because he catches people looking sometimes, waiting, and maybe one day he might get stabbed or raped or beaten so sometimes despite himself he skips on this half hour and goes straight to)

1800: Dinner

1900: Roll Call / Lights Out (his back is pressed to the wall and he’s on his guard the entire terrifying night.)

* * *

Emily updates him on cases, which he’s grateful for, but it’s JJ who provides the most comfort, because she never mentions Mexico, never talks about prison, never asks him how he’s doing (because they both already know the answer.)

Instead, she tells him that “Michael took his first steps the other day.”

Spencer laughs. “Oh, that’s great. How’s Henry?”

“He...misses you,” JJ admits. “He wants to know why you’re not visiting us anymore.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“That you were away on important business. But I think he’s starting to get suspicious.”

Spencer bites his lip and looks down at his feet. “I’m so sorry.”

“You know, he made a poster,” JJ continues, keeping her voice bright. “It’s this big sheet of cardstock that he put up in his room, with the names of all those dinosaurs you told him about. Says his favorite is--”

“--stegosaurus,” Spencer recalls. “Does he still read the book I got him?”

“Obsessed with it,” JJ confirms warmly. “I hear about it nonstop. We went to the museum the other day, and he was amazed.”

“That’s good. He’s smart.”

“Yeah, just like his godfather.”

They fall silent, but their happiness hangs in the air, and for a moment, Spencer forgets to be scared.

* * *

He can see the corner of the packet, just underneath the load of laundry, but instead of tossing the load down the chute, Spencer takes the packet and places it delicately on the table. Waiting. Thinking.

Move the drugs or get killed.

There are, he calculates, twelve different ways to get out of this situation, and the more he keeps thinking, the more violent these scenarios become.

He’s not going to move the drugs, if only for the last bit of humanity he has left, and he tries to tell himself that _you did what you had to do, and a lot of good people are alive because of what you did_ , but they’re not good people, are they?

(Although, there is that matter of the drugs that were in his system, are _still_ in his system from one month ago, ten years ago, and the morality of the situation disappears in a muddled pool of complex humanities.)

In the middle of the laundry room, the clock ticks, steady and sinister. It’s getting dark outside.

He proceeds with the twelfth option.

(He didn’t get a PhD in chemistry for nothing.)

* * *

“What happened?” He asks, a little too innocently (or not, because He is innocent, after all. Or is he? He hopes, desperately, that he’s still innocent, but the memories are still blurred together, and He is starting to get the feeling that no one is innocent in prison, not really. Not after a while.)

“Bad batch,” the guard replies with a shrug.

_That’s good,_ He tells himself, _that means your cover isn’t blown yet. They haven’t connected the dots._

(He’s starting to think like a criminal, and not in the way he’s used to. The days go slower and slower, and the memories start to blur, then fade, and He doesn’t even care anymore. It feels like another life, and it is, and now This Place is making him feral; making him tepid; making him immune.)

Luke is there this time, on the other side of the glass when it’s _OPEN GATE_ and _INMATES PROCEED_. Normally, He would be glad to see him, but His stomach is in knots (though he shouldn’t complain, seeing as He just poisoned his cellmates and their stomachs probably feel quite worse than his.) Luke notices.

“You look like hell,” he comments.

“I am in hell,” He deadpans.

Luke’s eyes track up and down His and finally settle on the eyes (and He knows his eyes look dead, like frozen mud rather than the _gold on the inside_ orbs his mother loved to write about. He hopes she’s still proud of him, whoever He is in her mind.)

“I heard about your friends,” Luke says (and there’s trace amounts of suspicion in his voice.) “Sorry about that.”

“Not my friends,” He mumbles.

“What happened to them?” Luke presses (he already knows the truth.)

“Bad batch,” He parrots with a shrug.

Luke seems to note the detachment in his voice (and in his entire body, his entire mind). “This place can take away your identity,” he says (maybe sympathetically, but probably not, because Luke is a realist, which is better than the sympathy.) “You have to hold on to who you are, Reid, because otherwise...well, you’ve got nothing if you don’t have yourself.”

“But I don’t have myself, do I?” He murmurs. “I don’t know who I am here.”

“You’re Dr. Spencer Reid,” Luke says, then adds: “Repeat after me.”

“You’re-- _I’m_ \--Dr. Spencer Reid.”

“You’re thirty-five years old.”

“I’m thirty-five years old.”

“You’ve been a member of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit for twelve years.”

“Thirteen years.”

“Thirteen years,” Luke corrects himself. “And--listen to me-- _you are innocent_. And you are _doing what you have to in order to survive._ Say that, Reid.”

“I am innocent. I am doing what I have to in order to survive.”

He doesn’t know if he believes the last bit, but Spencer starts to feel a little more like himself again.

(That is, until it’s _VISITING HOURS ARE OVER INMATES PROCEED TO REAR GATE_ and He watches Spencer leave with Luke, out the door, out of This Place, and all the way home.)

(In His mind, shadows take up the space where the Empty used to be. He welcomes the company.)

* * *

0700: Wake Up / Roll Call (beat the prisoners; beat the a guard; smash their heads into the cell wall)

0730: Breakfast (poison the food; stab someone in the neck with a fork; straight-up punch a guard)

0830: Courtyard (too many opportunities)

0900: Laundry room (shove the detergent down someone’s throat; lose the drugs they ask him to move and fight them when they confront him; ingest the drugs they ask him to move and give up on his already shaky sobriety)

1100: Reflection / chapel (take a hostage; smash someone’s skull on the altar or the small pew; watch them bleed out before an unforgiving God because no one is innocent and no one is void of sin, and no matter how many times they confess, everyone ought to be buried alive for what they’ve done and everyone will)

1200: Recreation (too many opportunities)

1230: Lunch (maybe he can starve to death in here)

1330: Visiting Hours (and he still feels safe here, feels safe here, feels safe here, feels safe here, feels safe here until his friends leave him alone with the worst cellmate in the world)

1530: Laundry Room (if he pushes hard enough maybe the washing machines aren’t as bolted to the wall as the guards think they are)

1630: Group Therapy (take the counselor’s pen and jam it into their neck; make every object in the room a hazard)

1730: Shower Room (he still catches people looking sometimes, waiting, and he waits for them too, waits for them to get close enough for their blood to be washed down the drain in under a minute, but no one moves despite the fact he stands under the water fully-clothed for the entire time until a guard shoves him out and points him to)

1800: Dinner (start a riot because This Place is undermanned for sure)

1900: Roll Call / Lights Out (lie in the shadows with his back to the cell gate and wonder if he’ll ever be Spencer again.)

* * *

_My name is Dr. Spencer Reid._

He manages to slip his toothbrush and a few elastic gloves by the guards and files, twists, snaps it, transforms into a Code Orange Hazard.

_I’m thirty-five years old._

Shaw threatens him (again and again and again and again and again) and He twirls the makeshift knife under the table.

_I’ve been a member of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit for thirteen years._

Brachial artery. Carotid artery. Femoral artery. Hone in. Follow through.

_I am innocent._

Shaw's eyes shift to the toothbrush, then back to Him. A silent dare. There's malice in his eyes, but also--surprisingly--fear.

_I am doing what I have to do in order to survive._

He doesn't take the bait; there's a thirteenth way out after all: Spencer stabs himself (because, homicidal thoughts aside, he still wants to be a good person.)

* * *

No one is allowed to visit him in solitary confinement (even He can’t get to Spencer through the sealed door, and for that Spencer is grateful), but despite this, someone enters the cell.

The visitor takes a seat, staring straight ahead and leaning back until his shoulders brush the wall. Spencer doesn’t turn to face him, either (because he knows this isn’t real, and he’s spent a lifetime of dealing with hallucinations and delusions, but despite that, he still plays along.)

“Hi, Gideon,” Spencer rasps.

Gideon sighs, long and heavy. “What’ve you done to yourself, Spencer?”

Spencer answers honestly: “I don’t know.”

They sit like this for a while, in cozy silence, before Gideon speaks up again: “Let's think about where you're gonna go from here.”

“‘The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see’,” Spencer quotes bitterly.

“In your heart,” Gideon says softly, “you know you’re innocent. Hold on to that.”

“Everyone tells me to hold on to my innocence. Believe me, I’ve been _trying_.”

“Not hard enough,” Gideon replies, with just as much bite. “Come on, Spencer. Where’s your head?”

“...With my mom.” The fight drained from his body quickly; Spencer rests his head on the (filthy) wall.

“Would you change anything, had you known what would happen?”

“I dunno. Maybe.”

A pause, then: “Your mother may be dead.”

“Unless there’s evidence to show otherwise, we always have to believe the victim is alive,” Spencer replies, closing his eyes, but he can tell Gideon is smiling.

“Still thinking like a BAU agent. That’s good.”

“My name is Dr. Spencer Reid and I’m thirty-five years old,” Spencer murmurs.

“You have been a member of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit for thirteen years.” (They’re bouncing off each other, just like old times. Spencer almost smiles at the familiarity.)

“I'm innocent.”

“And you’re doing what you have to do in order to survive,” Gideon finishes, then adds: “that last bit's a little iffy.”

Spencer simply hums in response.

“Didn’t have to poison those others, didn’t have to stab yourself in the leg. So why did you?”

“Dream analysis would suggest stabbing myself symbolizes guilt over ending a relationship or hurting someone I love. A wound to the leg represents issues with personal choices.”

“But this isn’t a dream,” Gideon points out. “And either way, you don’t believe in dream analysis.”

“What is this, then?” Spencer mumbles, but before Gideon replies, he answers the question himself: “you’re a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and stress. Therapist vernacular for going insane.”

“You’re not insane,” Gideon insists.

“Why am I here, then?”

“Don’t ask me, Spencer. You put yourself into this situation, so get out.”

“Solitary confinement _is_ the ‘out’.”

Gideon raises an eyebrow. “Because you don’t think anyone can clear your name?”

Spencer just sighs in response. “I’m so tired, Gideon.”

“Then give up.”

This makes Spencer open his eyes again. “What?”

“Give up,” Gideon repeats simply. “Close your eyes, turn off the world, go to sleep. Never wake up. You could do that, right here, right now. I know you’ve thought about it.” Spencer nods. “So, why haven’t you gone through with it yet?”

“I... _can’t_ ,” Spencer replies. “I just can’t do it.”

“Because you have something to live for,” Gideon concludes, then adds: “Strange phrase, right? Ironic how we’re willing to die for the things that we’re willing to live for, hm?”

Spencer just shrugs. “You did it. How did that turn out for you?”

Gideon waves his hand in a _so-so_ gesture, which makes both of them almost laugh.

Another moment of silence. Spencer starts to drift off, but Gideon jostles him. “Someone’s coming.”

“No touching allowed,” Spencer slurs automatically.

“Someone’s coming,” Gideon repeats. He stands up. “I’ve got to go now.”

“Why?” Spencer whispers. He can barely hear his own voice, it’s so soft. “Stay.”

“Sorry, Spencer,” Gideon says with a small half-smile, and then the door opens through his stomach and the hallucination dissolves.

There’s a guard at the door, brandishing a pair of handcuffs. Spencer extends his wrists without complaint.

( _I can get you anywhere_ , Shaw had warned him. _I own this place. You really think you can get away with it? Not on my watch._ )

Their footsteps echo through the damp, empty halls. No prisoners. No witnesses.

(Spencer tries to think of Luke’s mantra, but ironically, he can’t really think of much right now.)

They stop in an empty room.

(He wonders how the team will react.)

The door closes.

(Maybe they’ll be sad, but they’ll move on. Emily must have already prepared them, already warned them of this very likely possibility.)

Spencer waits, alone, uncuffed.

(Still, it’s kind of disappointing, dying after all this time.)

The door swings open.

(At least he tried. That must count for something, right?)

Spencer prepares himself for the first blow.

(And above all, there’s the peace of knowing he’s going to die as someone he recognizes.)

It never comes.

* * *

He rides back to the BAU with Garcia in tired silence. She slips him a water bottle, and he accepts it with quiet thanks (and proceeds to repeat the thanks in his head, over and over and over. He doesn’t know how he’ll ever be able to make this up to anyone, but maybe they already know. Family is nice like that.)

When they get to the BAU, not a single beat is missed. Emily pulls Spencer into her office and presses the iPad into his hands.

He watches the video silently, and before he can think, he blurts out: “Let’s go.”

(Back to prison, just like that. It’s like Spencer’s not allowed the final word there.)

“Wait, no. Give yourself a moment,” Emily says softly. “Do you want to be alone?”

Spencer nods (it’s a surprise; he _does_ want more time alone despite just having done time that he shouldn’t have done in the first place.)

The door closes. Spencer sits down (on the sticky floor that isn’t too bad compared to the floor in This Place) and brushes his hand along the table leg (it isn’t bolted to the floor so it’s a hazard. So is everything in this room, really, most especially him.)

After twenty minutes go by, Emily re-enters the room (without warning, which makes him startle) and tells him that “JJ’s by the car now.” She reaches for his shoulder. “It’s good to see you again.”

Her fingers brush his arm in what should be a comforting gesture, but Spencer flinches ( _NO TOUCHING ALLOWED_ ) and her confusion is palpable (so he shimmies away farther, just to be safe, because there's _NO TOUCHING ALLOWED.)_

After the awkwardness settles, Emily flashes him an uncomfortable smile and nods once. Spencer returns the gesture and stands by the door he can’t touch, waiting for an _INMATES PROCEED_ that does not come.

He realizes, as Emily nudges the door open, that he might never feel completely free again (but that is most certainly a small price to pay, and besides, there are other things to take up the Empty in his mind.)

**Author's Note:**

> Well golly. That might have been the darkest thing I've written, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless (if that's a sane thing to say?)


End file.
